Biography - Michael J Eva
I was born in England many years ago; sometimes it feels like too many years ago. My family moved to Montreal, Canada when I was quite young and so most of my upbringing was done in Montreal, an English kid in a francophone milieu.
After graduation, I started working for a major federal crown corporation located in Montreal, at the lowest rung of the ladder that you can get - the mailroom. Humble beginnings but yet, this was a great stepping stone to other jobs. Eventually, I moved into the Computer Systems section working as a junior analyst and my primary career was set.
You may well ask what a career in computer systems has to do with photography. The answer, nothing at all, but that is how I earned a living.
My first vacation as a young adult was when I was 20, I took a trip to Innsbruck Austria in the winter months to go skiing. As all good tourists, I knew I should take a camera for souvenir pictures. Not having one of my own, I borrowed my father's camera, a Pratika (German) 35 mm camera and the lifelong love affair started. This camera was pretty basic, we had no extra lenses, just the standard 50mm but it held film and took pictures. With this camera, I learned the basics of photography.
I acquired my own camera the following year after saving for an eternity. A Minolta SRT101 was my first choice, a real quality advance over the Pratika, and a real pleasure for my new found passion. I took photos of anything and everything, many ending up as rejects, but attempts just the same. my belief - practice, practice, practice, the only true road to success is practice.
Year after year, I took thousands of shots of various subjects and locations, immersing myself into the art of photography. I set up a full darkroom for developing and printing my own photos, black and white and color. When I wasn't in the field shooting, I could be found in my darkroom developing.
My photography skills improved with each photographic opportunity and with a fair amount of experimentation, always trying new things, new angles, new lighting, new subject matter, new attitudes. My career took me to new locations, which gave me the opportunity to experience new locations for my photography.
I now live in Ottawa, Canada's capital, where I my photography is my full time career. I have spent many years shooting many travel destinations including numerous trips to Europe, throughout the USA and into every province of Canada. I have shot many disciplines of photography from portrait to scenics, landscapes, children, nature, through to and including travel photography. I mostly shot film until the late 90's when I began my conversion to digital.
I now only shoot digital using Canon equipment. This finally got me out of the dark darkroom. However, I now spend a large amount of my time in the well-lit darkroom, my office where my enlarger is now my computer. I use Photoshop as my core editing platform and Epson printers for paper prints. How photography has advanced, what an era I have lived through in the world of photography. I could only wish to have advanced at the same pace.
Michael J Eva
